Dreamweaver CC17 Updates!

The joy AND pain of Creative software, including Creative Cloud, is that software and trends change often. As a result, you’ll need to learn to adapt to changes! The video below helps you learn how to adjust to the new interface changes introduced in Dreamweaver CC15 summer update and CC17. Remember, the interface is flexible- so you can customize it easily! But the web is changing faster than any other medium, so changes are inevitable in this field!

Put brain in gear before clicking mouse.

I know. You hate planning things out. That’s pretty common for designers. But if you’re working on stuff for the web, you’re going to have to develop the habit! There are many amazing web designers that can’t eat because they don’t know how to work with the client to figure out how to make the site that will get them paid.

When designing websites, your goal is to design for the client’s needs and goals- you really need to understand their target audience and goals, and then plan things out. Trust us- it takes WAY more time to design stuff TWICE than it does to just listen to the client and organize things right the first time around!

• 101- The Design Process The design process… Don’t leave home without it! **
• 102- Client Goals Discovering what the Client actually wants for the project. **
• 103- Site Needs Vary The kind of site they want makes a HUGE impact on what they expect. **
• 104- Target Audience You talkin’ to ME? or them? or those other people? Figure it out and learn how to connect with them.
• 105- Brainstorm! That’s BrainSTORM, not braindrizzle. Let those ideas pour! (Speaking of brains… a tribute.)
• 106 – Site Plan and Outline Think before you do. Trust me, it’s worth the time it takes.
• 107- Storyboarding Plan your work, then work your plan. No thinkee, your web site will stinkee.

Fire Up Your Website Dreams

This series of tutorials will help youdig in to Dreamweaver and build your first pages! All you need to build, layout, organize, and link up your pages.

Click the button below to see the mission briefing!

Mission Briefing

And you can grab all the goodies by clicking the button below!

Dreamweaver 2015 files

***Attention Teachers- These goodies are a big download. Some teachers have reported it’s easiest to download once and share on school servers or even copy to a couple flash drives and share around the class to make it easier. Otherwise, you might bring your campus internet to a screeching halt! ***

• 2.01- Workspace Basics **- Putting the Workspace in your Face!
• 2.02- Dreamweaver Experience ** – Welcome to the Dreamweaver Experience
• 2.03- Project Planning  – Prepare to be awesome and make the skeleton
• 2.04- Words, Words, Words – Controlling the machine
• 2.05- HTML Structure – Let’s face it… most creatives need a little more structure.
• 2.06- Can I get a Table Please? – Setting up tables in Dreamweaver!
• 2.07- A Site To Behold – Learn how to get that site setup so Dreamweaver becomes your file housekeeper.
• 2.08- Review! – Wrap up your learning with a review of every critical concept in this tutorial set!

Worth 1000 Words- Images on Pages

• 3.01- Optimize Images – Don’t tell images they’re fat… but if they are, quietly FIX IT!
• 3.02- Insert Images – Pages go from LAME to GAME!
• 3.03- Image Placements– NOBODY puts images in the corner!!
• 3.04- Edit Images the Right Way – There is a wrong way… it’s probably how you’re doing it. SIZE MATTERS!
• 3.05- Round-Trip Ticket, Please – Photoshop and Dreamweaver. They’re kind of a thing.
• 3.06- Heads Up for Attributes – Alt text and Attributes give awesome heads-up info to elements!
• 3.07- Whatever Floats your Boat -Positioning elements well with DIV Floats
• 3.08- Review – We covered a TON- This review is the recap of it ALL!

Getting the Hook-Up

This series of tutorials will help you create links to your site content to make it easier to get to. Learn how to get things linked up, and the multiple ways and best practices to make it happen!

• 4.01- Navigation in your Station – Link up your text to help you jump around the web-osphere!
• 4.02- Quick Link Tricks – Learn the fast and easy ways to create links using Dreamweaver!
• 4.03- Linking Absolutely Anywhere!– Doesn’t matter where you are, these directions get you there.
• 4.04- Pick Your Path – There are actually many ways from here to there, figure out how to map it!
• 4.05- Jump To It! – Anchor links are AWESOME. Get to EXACTLY where you want to go on a page! Cool tip!
• 4.06- Links In Review – Double-tap all that linking info to your noggin!

You’re speaking in code

This section teaches you the basics of CSS- which is the COOLEST THING EVER for web design. This separates the noobs from the cool kids, so PAY ATTENTION! CSS and DIVs are everything these days- KNOW IT!!

• 5.01- Contain Yourself – Setup your document using HTML Containers and organize everything!
• 5.02- Divide and Conquer -DIVide up your pages and learn to think smarter about web design!
• 5.03- Box Yourself In!– The CSS Box Model is everything. Without it, the world as we know it ceases to exist.*
• 5.04- Clean Up Before Moving In – Prepping your CSS page for content. Hurry, they’re on their way over!!!
• 5.05- CSS is not your Foe –  The Faux column technique!
• 5.06- How’s the New Pad? – Adding space for your content by giving them padding
• 5.07- Heads Up!! -Style the header to make a good first impression.
• 5.08 – Review – Learn what you learned and let it sink in deep.

*- not really.

Designing the UX

It just sounds so cool to say (or type) UX. It stands for User eXperience- making sure that people don’t come after you for making your site an instrument of torture because it’s so poorly laid out. Make it awesome, and create a good UX!!

• 6.01- Create a Navigation Bar -Getting Stylish with Links and riding shotgun for your site.
• 6.02- Links get LoVe HAppy!! -The 4 states of Linking Love: Link, Visited, Hover, and Active
• 6.03- Nice Shoes! – Styling the Footer on your site to make it ready for a date.
• 6.04- Getting the facts on the table! – Importing CSV files to make your spreadsheets prettier.
• 6.05- Making Contact – Feedback from site visitors is ALWAYS welcome!
• 6.06- YOURtube! – Adding HTML5 video and audio. So cool!
• 6.07 – Reviewing the UX– Quick review of the UX critical concepts. (COMING SOON!)

GETTING RESPONSIVE

Responsive design is a pretty big deal these days- and what it means is that the page responds to the device it’s being viewed on. This allows you do design one page that will change size, shape, and layout of elements when viewed on a phone versus a monitor.

• 7.01- Examining Responsive Design– Prepare to Get Small
• 7.02- Scalable Images and elements-Respond to (something…responsive..uhh…I dunno)
• 7.03- Media Queries– Styling for a Pocket-sized World
• 7.04- Restyling Navigation– Dressing Up your Mobile View

Prototype to Production

Well, adventurer… your journey to designing the site is about done. Here’s where you test, polish, and push your site live! Bad news, it’s a little like sending your kid off to college- you might miss this project once you’re done working on it. Good news? Your site might become a doctor and support you in a lavish lifestyle for the rest of your life! Just make sure you do these steps to send your baby off right. If you just kick them out of your house- they won’t build you your own later! 😉

• 8.01- Clean Up Your Act– Final work on the prototype
• 8.02- Using your head–  Metadata for making your site visible
• 8.03- Prototype to Production–  Crank it out!!!
• 8.04- Technical testing– Check yo’self before you wreck yo’self.
• 8.05- Working With Web Servers– Tips for your server…
• 8.06- Testing Usability– Don’t make a lame site. Usability is win.
• 8.07- The Big Review!!– Rollout review!